It’s called a Little Sulphur Butterfly.  Cute little thing.

Little Sulphur Butterfly

She actually made the little cards and put 1/4 teaspoon of Milkweed seeds into each packet (that’s typically much more than we have received when we’ve ordered something).

I thought it was a pretty clever bit of crafting myself.

Leecy-Made Milkweed Packet

I know some of the folks that we have given the Milkweed seeds have asked how we plant them.  Down here in Houston, it’s quite easy.  Throw them in a pot or the ground and cover them with just a bit of soil.  Seriously, that’s all we’ve ever had to do!

I got a few pictures, but I missed several and several others weren’t that good as I got over-excited.

The plants that seemed to be attracting the most Butterflies were the Lantana and Butterfly Bush.

The most prevalent Butterfly I saw today was the Eastern Black Swallowtail.  Interestingly, none of them were laying any eggs, they were just going after the nectar and chasing each other.

Eastern Black Swallowtail On Butterfly Bush

On top of all that, we’re having a crisis.  We are running out of Dutchman’s Pipevine (Aristolochia Fimbriata) and neither Joshua’s Native Plants nor Buchanan’s Native Plants has any in stock.  We have at least 15 huge Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillars and although I’ve been thinking they will soon stop eating and form Chrysalises, I’m apparently mistaken.  I could have sworn they were going to stop eating yesterday, and yet today there they were, still munching away.  They were even eating the Dutchman’s Pipevine stems since there were so few leaves.

I’m going to start calling first thing in the morning and see if any other nurseries have this plant in stock.  For those of you in the Houston area reading this, if you know of a source, please share!

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see her, but I’m thinking most of her “friends” have already long gone.

Based on how well her wings look, I’m guessing she is fairly young.

I wonder if she will actually try and migrate towards Canada or if she’ll just hang around locally?

What do you think?

Female Monarch Spreading Wings On Milkweed

Female Monarch Laying Eggs On Milkweed

Some of you Butterfly Gardeners may notice how full that Milkweed is.  The reason it’s so full, not just in this particular place but all across the yard, is because we only had 7 Monarch Caterpillars so far during the Spring until now.  Once they return in the Fall, we’ll be able to feed them to the point of exploding!

Young Male Cardinal Posing By Milkweed

This proves once again that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I thought we’ve seen all the Monarchs we were going to see until the Fall.

Spring Generation Monarch Feeding On Milkweed

Because both of these females were laying so many eggs, I’m hopeful that we will get quite a few Monarch Caterpillars in a few weeks.

Monarch Feeding Before Laying Eggs

In this first image, the Swallowtail is getting nectar from one of our Penta plants.

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Penta

These next two images are “almost” the same, but one of them contains a notorious Butterfly Caterpillar killer.  These pictures are a little unusual as well (at least to me) because the Giant Swallowtail is getting nectar from the Milkweed plant, which is the Host Plant for Monarch Butterflies.

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Milkweed With Wasp

Giant Swallowtail Feeding On Milkweed

I’ll start with the Monarchs.  Originally we had 9 Monarch caterpillars from that adult Monarch who probably traveled from Mexico.  Now we have 7.  Two of them died, but I’m not sure why.  I had been keeping the Monarch caterpillars in a protected enclosure to protect them from wasps, and I also had placed them on the Milkweed that had no Aphids.  When I checked yesterday, 2 of the Monarch caterpillars had died.  Since I’m not 100% certain that this Milkweed hasn’t been treated (and that being the reason for no Aphids on the plant), I decided to move them to the Aphid infested Milkweed.  At least I know that Milkweed is not treated (that’s one of my personal tests for knowing that Milkweed hasn’t been treated.  If it has Aphids, it likely is okay for the Monarchs).  I also moved them to an area that gets a bit more sun.  They seem to like that.  I’m guessing they have maybe a week at most before they move on to the Chrysalis stage.

For the record, this is by far the lowest number of Monarch caterpillars we’ve had in the Spring.  We haven’t even seen many Monarchs flying around.

Mexican Monarch Caterpillar Eating Milkweed

Two Mexican Monarch Caterpillars Eating Milkweed

More Mexican Monarch Caterpillar Eating Milkweed

Now on to the Purple Martins.  There is lots of activity in our 14 room Purple Martin house.  Yesterday we took down the house to check out the nesting activity.  We have a total of 6 nests, but no eggs or baby birds.  In the morning, the Martins seems to be really focused on continuing to build their nests.  I’m hopeful that we will see some eggs real soon.